AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD partner is hardly relevant. The telling thing is that Bethesda CBA full stop.

Certainly for the games they are actually well known for TES and Fallout. That id know how to program good engines is well known so don't let Doom being published by Bethesda fool you, but TES has always had a very poor engine going all the way back to Morrowind*.

Recently bought TW3. Haven't played it much yet, but just looking at without any mods made me realise how poor Skyrim is and how no amount of texture mods are going to do anything about the poor models.

*Actually, Daggerfall already had a poor engine in many ways. Think it was for this Terminator thing which used an update of that engine, that Bethesda advertised as a ground-breaking engine and having fallen through the ground so many times in one of the endless randomly generated Dagggerfall dungeon, that's what I called it: the BugSoft ground-breaking-engine™.

I think its a kick to teeth,when you partner with a company,and the last game they made and the most played game they have made or published on Steam currently,has had no patches for Ryzen,but had loads for the Creation Club,etc over the last year. Then they make VR versions of the game.

This is part of the problem,why we don't see better utilisation of newer tech like DX12/Vulkan as even companies making $100 of million or even over a $1 billion on a game,CBA to even support their own games properly. I mean look at PUBG - its really poorly optimised too and even reviewers are realising this,and they have had loads of dosh from Early Access. ARK was another one - only now after over two years does it remotely run OKish.

Not a single one of these games seem to be DX12/Vulkan so just cram in assets and seem to take a sledgehammer approach to optimisation and these are NEW games too.

I still remember back to Skyrim,Bethesda used X87 instructions which were very inefficient on all CPUs,especially AMD ones(both Intel and AMD basically had advised to stop using it). They did nothing for months and the community made a mod called Skyboost which made sure more effficient SSE type instructions were used. Apparently,a while later they released a patch to sort it out,probably out of embarassment. I actually asked AMD on a Q and A session about it,and I honestly think they are not even aware of how poorly Fallout 4 runs,relative to other games,even to the extent Jim from AdoredTV noticed it too.

Regarding the mods,the community has modded literally everything out of the game,down to the character models,animations,everything and that applies to both versions of Skyrim and FO4. Even the settlement system in FO4 has been revamped with stuff like Sim Settlements,etc. Even the Bethesda HD texture pack is a joke at over 50GB. There are loads of HD packs done by the community which improve everything and simply do a better job and use less resources and HDD space.

Bethesda owes a lot to its community,and its just dissapointing for all that great work they do,they CBA to even try and make their games run better on more CPUs.

Also Jim Sterling has invented a term for Bethesda,Bethetic.

[lumireleon]

Performance would be much higher if AMD could have included a high speed 'Crystalwell' eDRAM cache just like intel iris Pro

[azrael-]

I was wondering if the tests were done with the Meltdown and Spectre patch(es) in place. Especially the Meltdown patch has the potential to slow down Intel's processors quite a bit, whereas Ryzen isn't affected by this at all (i.e. doesn't need the Meltdown patch).

[DanceswithUnix]

From the article:

We can surmise that having a x8 PCIe interface is hurting a touch here.

The 7600K is a tad lower than the 8350K, and the main difference between the two is that the 7600K has half the L3 cache. I suspect that is at least as important as the PCIe here.

I was wondering if the tests were done with the Meltdown and Spectre patch(es) in place. Especially the Meltdown patch has the potential to slow down Intel's processors quite a bit, whereas Ryzen isn't affected by this at all (i.e. doesn't need the Meltdown patch).

It is only older Intel CPUs that are hit hard, it shouldn't really matter on these.

[decends]

I am adding more reviews to the review thread,and the 2400G can actually fight a GT1030 with DDR4?? Just,wow.

I am more impressed by the APUs then even the Ryzen CPU launch.

Does,FreeSync work OK with these APUs??

Edit!!

Hmm,on further reading there seems to be some niggles - not sure why AMD hasn't sorted them out yet as the the mobile versions have been around for a few months. Oh,well its to be expected from an AMD launch.

The IGPU in the 2200G and 2400G does support freesync, but only if the motherboard has a Display port. Freesync doesnt work on HDMI ports on the motherboard from what ive heard from the youtube reviews.

[Corky34]

IIRC Freesync over HDMI depends on what version of port is on the motherboard (1.2+) and if the monitor supports it.

[KN1GHT]

I am sad to see that Hexus showed much more "discrete gaming" than IGP, knowing all good that these CPUs have been built for mostly only IGP case use.

It is most important feature but in this test has been showed as side feature.

One could think that Intel might have influence on these tests. Can wait to see how Intel+Vega chip will be tested. Discrete gaming will get more importance than IGP?

Normally you were suppose to show many IGP uses (gaming, media,...) and just mention discrete gaming as probably the least important information for this kind of products.

It would be good if you can rearrange the review.

Hi there,

There are actually seven benchmarks for discrete and seven for IGP - it may look like more for the former because the graphs are taller. The reason for the full set of discrete is twofold: we already have all the numbers from other comparable chips and, given that even the Vega IGP cannot muster enough horsepower in major titles, we reckon many users will add a discrete card to a system.

Hi Tarinder
I kindly disagree.

People buying these APU's will mostly be playing e-sports games and touch on some heavier games as your own results did show these APU's made games playable that were not with Intel based APU's. I fully agree with the comment from darcotech. Those APU's are strong enough for most AAA games at low settings and e-sports games at even high settings. anyone even remotely interested should not be buying a discrete GPU for this.

I can see how someone could start with this and get a RX580/GTX1060 later, but I personally would rather just keep it as it is for E-sport games and multi media

You should have focused more on IGP performance and added E-Sport games as this will be the main market for this APU. If you look at the recent steam survey you will notice that GT1030's are the most popular. Even for WOW players on a budget this would be perfect.

If you bring a discrete GPU in the mix then you kill most of the value proposition.

[Tabbykatze]

...If you bring a discrete GPU in the mix then you kill most of the value proposition.

Absolutely agree, this review is wasted on me because I wanted IGP review, not discrete. We all know how the processor will operate, we want to know how the IGP will operate.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Talking about WoW,after looking through the reviews,PCGH did actually test it.

The IGPU in the 2200G and 2400G does support freesync, but only if the motherboard has a Display port. Freesync doesnt work on HDMI ports on the motherboard from what ive heard from the youtube reviews.

FreeSync would be ideal for an APU,as overall it would give a smoother experience I suspect than a lower end card. OFC,it probably only makes sense if you are doing a totally new build or need a replacement monitor,but still it would be nice if it could be tested out at some point against cards like the GT1030 and GTX1050.

[tinbin]

i would love the 2400g in a laptop

[Bagnaj97]

If you bring a discrete GPU in the mix then you kill most of the value proposition.

2200G is £10 cheaper than i3-8100, and for now at least the total platform cost is much cheaper for AMD because there are still only Z series boards out for Coffee Lake.

Similarly for the 2400G, you've got 8 threads vs the 6 of the i5-8400 so despite having 2 fewer cores the 2400G isn't that far behind in MT benchmarks. Again, for the time being at least, Coffee Lake CPUs are limited to Z370 boards which start from ~£90, whereas you can put a 2400G in a 320m board for comfortably <£50, or B350 board from around £60 if you want to overclock.

I'd hardly say you kill the value proposition if you take the IGP out of the equation!

[DanceswithUnix]

Absolutely agree, this review is wasted on me because I wanted IGP review, not discrete. We all know how the processor will operate, we want to know how the IGP will operate.

My daughter runs an old FM2+ APU with a discrete graphics card but didn't always. Part of the value proposition is upgradability.

OTOH I always cringe at pifast. What is that proving again? Note: Anyone who says single threaded performance gets laughed at, complete with pointing.

[Xlucine]

Calculating pi to 3m places is totally useful! Just look at all the times CPU reviewers do it - seconds saved there would save them a few minutes over a year!

It's amusing that the cheapest comparable system with a dGPU is one of these APU's with a 1030 bunged in. Comparable ryzen CPUs cost more (although the 1500X has had a price cut, putting it £5 below the 2400G on scan), and intel systems basically do not enter this end of the market (what with only Z motherboards). Sure the 1030 is a bit faster, but fast enough to warrant at least an extra £65 when you've already got the vega bit?

i would love the 2400g in a laptop

That's basically an R7 2700U (although down 1 CU, and only 15W)

[Tarinder]

Hi Tarinder
I kindly disagree.

People buying these APU's will mostly be playing e-sports games and touch on some heavier games as your own results did show these APU's made games playable that were not with Intel based APU's. I fully agree with the comment from darcotech. Those APU's are strong enough for most AAA games at low settings and e-sports games at even high settings. anyone even remotely interested should not be buying a discrete GPU for this.

I can see how someone could start with this and get a RX580/GTX1060 later, but I personally would rather just keep it as it is for E-sport games and multi media

You should have focused more on IGP performance and added E-Sport games as this will be the main market for this APU. If you look at the recent steam survey you will notice that GT1030's are the most popular. Even for WOW players on a budget this would be perfect.

If you bring a discrete GPU in the mix then you kill most of the value proposition.

Hi there,

We're always willing to listen to readers' thoughts. Which game(s) would you like to see tested from an eSports perspective?

[Tabbykatze]

Hi there,

We're always willing to listen to readers' thoughts. Which game(s) would you like to see tested from an eSports perspective?

League
DOTA
Overwatch
Fortnite
CS:Go
Starcraft
Heroes of the Storm
PUBG
Quake Champions
World of Tanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

League
DOTA
Overwatch
Fortnite
CS:Go
Starcraft
Heroes of the Storm
PUBG
Quake Champions
World of Tanks

AFAIK,Fortnite has gone past PUBG now! From what I read there seems to be some driver issues with both games,especially with the Ryzen 5 2400G and Fortnite,where there is some weird hitching reported.